Best Friends For Life, John And I Became Inseparable

We did it all, Swimming, Skiing, Tennis, bike rides, cooking, vacations...Issue #21

ifOnlyi… practiced when my Dad once gave me incredible advice: for every dollar I earned, I should save 50 cents and enjoy the rest. As good as that advice was and still is, I never did heed it. At least I didn’t get caught for streaking in Banff. That time!!

John and I met in 8th grade at Margate Middle School one afternoon while he was throwing baskets. We hit it off right away and soon became best friends. John would come over to our house almost daily, and together, we would swim, play tennis or basketball, go bike riding, or BBQ inside on the kitchen grill.

We would do stupid and dangerous stuff together, too. I got John to climb up a ladder onto our roof, and together we would run downwards and push off into the swimming pool.

The roof is made of wooden shingles with nails sticking up. This had to be one of the stupidest things we could have done. Can you imagine the thought of tripping over the metal gutters and falling into the pool's shallow end was hair-raising? Bloody nuts, but we kept it up as long as I lived there.

I used to call John ‘Boofus’, and later in life, I honored him by naming one of our products after him. It was an inside joke between the two of us, but that’s what we liked to do all the time: joke.

John was the kind of person who loaded his shotgun shells, waxed his skies, and changed his car oil—a talent I had little knowledge of. I could not understand the workings of a car no matter how hard I tried, but John seemed to retain all the details.

That first winter, we took a skiing trip with my mom and her ski instructor, Fred, to Banff, Canada. Maybe it was the coldest winter ever, or at least it seemed like it.

I remember Fred throwing a cup of milk from the hotel room window, and it froze in the air within seconds.

This was the weather we skied in; it was VERY cold, and the Hotel was massive as you can see from the photo.

John and I often loved giving each other dares, and many would get out of control. This was the year of streaking dares! John had to leave our room at the end of the hallway, streak down the hall to the elevator door, wait for the elevator door to open all the way, and then run back to the room.

Well, all was good, but me being me, when he arrived, sweating and shivering, I closed the door and he had no key. Banging hard, begging to be let in, I pushed the limits until I could hear him stressing out and getting angrier by the second before letting him in.

I was next to run, and panic started setting in right away. I knew, because I left him standing naked outside our bedroom door, he would have something planned.

I tried to wrangle my way out of the run but had no chance, so off I went, running as fast as possible. I could barely see the end of the hallway and had to live by the same rules.

• Run to the end of the corridor

• Wait for the elevator door to open for someone to get out

• Streak back to our room

I got to the elevator door quickly, but the only doors opening were guest room doors with guests heading down in the elevator for dinner. There I was, standing butt-ass naked, holding my junk with all those people waiting to go down when the elevator opened up.

The cold, shrinkage started taking effect, and I started shivering, too. The door opened once, then twice, but no one was in it, so I could not run yet. Finally, relief, someone came up in the elevator, and I was flying back to the room. I was terrified that a guest would turn me into security, and we would be kicked out of the hotel. Thankfully, John did not lock me out.

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Mom and Fred heard rumors that people were streaking in the hotel and to watch out for them. We both were on perfect behavior for the rest of the trip, I couldn’t risk getting my ass whipped.

Our first summer as best friends, we had excellent plans for making money! John and I set up a little door-to-door business where we could walk to people’s homes and ask them if they would like their windows washed. Inside and out, it was all profit, split evenly between John and me. The two of us gelled so well together that we were destined to be best friends for life.

I was an expert at cleaning windows; I’d had plenty of practice at home, and John became the dude scrubbing the windows with vinegar and soap. I would come behind him, rinse, squeegee, and wipe corners down with my towel. It was like an assembly line. We moved quickly and did a super fantastic job.

We had zero investment or cost:

• Mom’s vinegar and squeegee

• Mom’s bucket and towels

• Homeowners’ ladders and water

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ifOnlyi…. short stories are published chronologically, and follow my life growing up in California from 4 years old. If you’ve just found me the stories will come together when you start reading from….Issue #1